The many minds of Ashlie Blood
by Bloodie Ash
Summary: Ashlie Blood is just your average girl struggling with writer's block. Then she made the mistake of reading a spell aloud and now she's stuck in her own fanfiction. In order to get out she'll have to write an amazing fic that includes an exit, can she do it?
1. Mind One: Pixies

**I don't own _One Piece_**

* * *

What the hell was going on? My head spun and pounded. Obviously, something wasn't right, but I just couldn't figure out what. My left hand rested on the book I'd found in the hidden section of the library, a large leather bound tomb with a sprawling sun carved into the cover. My right hand was thrown out as if to catch myself.

The world spun around me, a strange humming filling the air. A strange golden mist obscured my vision. What the hell? It was like how one would imagine Alice's trip through the looking glass, hazy and more than a bit uncertain.

The world stopped spinning and the mist gave one last swirl before dissipating. I was left alone in a darkened corner in a room lit only by candles. I looked around and felt my jaw drop.

The room I was in was large, cluttered with tables and chairs. Along the walls were ledges with candles lined on top of them. Four small round cast iron chandeliers hung from the ceiling in a line from door to back wall. The large front windows were covered with just as large thick maroon curtains. Across the room was a doorway that led to another room very similar to the main room, but with booths and prettier chandeliers. I glanced towards the back of the room which had a long counter and display case filled with mouthwatering pastries and pies. Behind the counter was space enough for the baristas to move around preparing orders and the what not. Beyond that was the grey swinging door that led to the kitchen. The Wicked Wick Café, but how?

Wicked Wick Café was something I'd created for a modern _One Piece_ au that hadn't gotten off the ground. The premise behind it had been just a haven for writers or people who liked dark more secluded place, or vampire fans. All the candles were bought from Mr. 3, who was a regular customer. I looked around for him and found him in the corner diagonal from my own, closer to the door.

I shook my head. This was beyond wacky. This was beyond weird. Hell, this was beyond crazy. What was I doing here?

"Obviously, you have some questions."

I jumped at the sudden voice. "Look down you idiot." The voice hissed. I followed its directions and looked down at my left hand. The book was warm under my hand and maybe the fact it was no longer a book would explain that. Instead under my palm was some kind of strange orange pixie chibi thing. The skin was kissed by the sun, the eyes were narrowed and the color of the Mediterranean Sea, and the hair was down around the ears and a nice sandy color. They were dressed in an orange robe. I snatched my hand away.

"What the hell?" I demanded.

The pixie chibi thing pulled a face. "I am the spell book." They announced.

"Uh-huh and I'm apparently on crack." I replied.

The pixie glared. "No, you're not. You read a spell from me and now we're here."

"And where the hell is here?"

The pixie shrugged. "I don't know. Somewhere of your creation." Well no shit.

"What spell did I supposedly read?"

"A spell to get past writers' block."

"Wait no, I remember that. It wasn't a spell. It was a poem about a writer's struggle with her own stories." I argued.

"If it was in my book then it was a spell and you read it aloud so here we are." Damn it! No! What the hell?

"What's the counter spell?"

"There isn't one."

"Then how do you break the spell?"

"You let it play out."

"How does it play out?"

The pixie shrugged again. Gods above and below I wanted to strangle them. "It depends on the writer. You must be inspired."

"Well that should be easy. Everything inspires me."

The pixie shook their head. "Not like that. You must write, mold the world we've entered. Write until you are free from it, thus breaking the block."

"But it's not my world to mold. This is a fanfiction! I just took what was already there and twisted it."

"So, twist it some more until it pops!" The pixie proclaimed. I scowled. Oh, I wanted to pop something and it wasn't the world.

"Gods above and below do you suck." I groaned.

"Well excuse me! See if I help you now."

"You weren't helping me in the first place!"

"Rude!"

"Well so are you!"

I couldn't believe I was arguing with some pixie chibi thing that claimed to be a spell book. I slid weakly into the nearest chair and let my head drop to the table before cushioning it with my arms. What the hell was I going to do? I wasn't even into _One Piece_ at the moment. I'd cycled out temporarily in favor of _Parks and Rec_. I was several chapters behind.

Damn it! Why the hell had I been so stupid? I knew better. You didn't read aloud, ever, and especially if it looked like poetry or a spell book. That was one of the big rules, right up there with don't screw with a Ouija board!

And now because I hadn't followed the rules I was stuck here until I wrote something. I lifted my head from the table with a sigh. Obviously, I needed to make nice with the pixie. I wouldn't survive without them.

"is this all that exists of this world?"

"Until you write more."

"So, whatever I write happens?"

"Yep."

"Any boundaries?"

"You're supposed to figure that one out on your own."

I nodded. That made a certain degree of sense. "And you're like my guide? Stuck with me until I break the spell?"

"Unfortunately."

I grimaced, the pixie's response was totally warranted, but damn, if I had any ego that would have hurt. As it was it still stung.

"Look, I'm sorry about everything I was just a little freaked."

"Well you took it better than some of the people I've met." The pixie conceded.

I smiled. "I'm Ash, you?"

"Azrael."

"Like the angel?"

Azrael nodded. Well damn, that was totally going to mess with my head. I mean Azrael certainly didn't look like an angel, more like some personification of the zodiac sign Leo or the god Apollo.

A napkin with a phone number scribbled in one corner was sitting on the table. I dragged it to me and flipped it over, the back was blissfully blank. I pulled a pen out of my jacket pocket and started writing, nothing big or elaborate. Just some world building to get me on my feet, a place to stay, a steady paycheck, things I was going to need if I was stuck here for a while, which I figured I would be.


	2. Mind two: Coffee shop au

**I don't own _One Piece_**

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My alarm went off blaring the radio. I groaned and fumbled for a button, it didn't matter if it was the off or the snooze button, I just wanted it to shut up

"Ash! Wake up! You don't want to be late to your first day at work." An overly cheerful voice sang out.

I groaned again and pulled a pillow over my head. Gods it felt way too early for this crap.

The pillow was yanked from my head. I opened my eyes to glare at whoever stole my pillow only to find myself glaring at a bright orange flying blob. I gave a strange kind of yelp and fell back off the bed. Ow.

"Seriously? You couldn't have done that yesterday?"

"I thought it was a dream!"

"Well it wasn't. Now come on. You don't want to be late." Azrael growled.

And now I was back to wanting to strangle the spell book. With a shake of my head I pushed myself to my feet. I found my glasses on the nightstand and pushed them onto my face.

I shuffled my way over to my dresser and pulled out some clothes, a black t-shirt, dark jeans, and blue socks with colorful mermaids on them. I changed out of my kitty jammies quickly and into the clothes I'd pulled out. I pulled on my sneakers, wishing they were converses. I could write them that way, but I was too lazy.

I moved to the bathroom, wincing when I saw that the ponytail I'd put my hair in before bed had turned me into Medusa. I'd deal with that, but while my hair was out of the way it would make more sense to brush my teeth first. Don't ask me how, but some way every time I brushed my teeth without making sure my hair was pinned back somehow, I got toothpaste in my hair.

I brushed my teeth and then took my hair down. I ran a brush through it, hating it more and more with every knot. I hated long hair, but I didn't have the bone structure to pull off short hair, and so I had to deal with my hair falling to my mid back in cute waves that formed unbearable and unmanageable knots.

I pulled my hair back as if I was going to put it into a ponytail, but instead I twisted it so it lad flat against the back of my head and then I grabbed a small black hair clip and clipped it about half way up the not ponytail. The above part fell over the clip when I let go of it, hiding the clip from view. I fluffed the hair above the clip carefully and then quickly turned away from the mirror. I didn't want to know what I looked like.

I slipped out of the bathroom and grabbed my messenger bag. My laptop, charger, IPod touch, and phone were already inside, as well as some other necessities I would need. I settled the strap of the bag on my shoulder, going across my body, and grabbed my jacket on the way out the door, Azrael quick on my heels.

"I'm your guide remember." They complained, landing on my shoulder.

"Yeah and? I'm just going to work." I pointed out. I really doubted I'd get a second to myself to think let alone write.

"You'd be surprised what inspires you."

"I already told you everything."

Azrael rolled their purple eyes and huffed out a short breath.

The walk from my apartment to work was uneventful, just the way I liked it. I could just listen to my music and not have to worry about anyone or anything. Of course, this also meant there wasn't any inspiration to be found. Still, it was nice to just walk with "Shape of you" bouncing against my ear drums.

I stopped in front of the building. Wicked Wick Café, which by the way, despite its name was more of a coffee shop than a café. Why had I chosen to write myself working there, I knew nothing about coffee. For that matter why had I written myself working at all? I'd never had motivation to do anything. But I knew the answers to both questions. I'd written myself working because I needed money and working at Wicked Wick would force me to interact with people, something I abhor, which would hopefully inspire me. Still… Why had I chosen Wicked Wick? It's not like I hadn't created other fictional places I could work at. There was the business behind the MMRPG _Magical Delight_ , or the fan café Nerds. But alas my knowledge of coffee, not to mention the fact I was walking glitch, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to write Nerds into existence here, despite it being a much better fit for me, because one of the few friends I had in the real world kept saying he was going to build it.

So here I was stuck working at Wicked Wick Café. With a sigh, I trudged inside, and immediately regretted it. Holy shit! It was packed to the gills. I skirted around the edge of the crowd, trying desperately not to bump into anyone or anything, it was annoyingly difficult.

I pulled my earbuds out as I got to the counter. Ugh, the noise of people stabbed at my head like a million knives. "What's going on?" I asked the guy behind the counter, Coby? Well I hadn't written that. I'd have to ask Azrael about it.

"Spider's Café is closed for repairs so all their customers are coming to us for their daily coffee." Coby explained. Spider's Café, that was Miss Doppelfinger's place. The only reason I remembered that was because just before cycling out completely I'd read two fics back to back that mentioned it.

"Damn! Do you know how long they'll be closed?" I wondered as I hung my jacket and bag on a hook next to the kitchen door.

"They said about a week." Double damn, I couldn't put up with this many people every morning for a week.

"Please tell me we've got reinforcements coming." I practically begged as I took some girl's order. It was long, difficult, and way too much of a hassle to remember. Luckily with the way I'd written things the day before my body worked on a strange autopilot. Ha! I didn't even need coffee knowledge.

"Just us 'til non." Damn and it was only six. I huffed out a large sigh and gave the girl her drink. I was going to hate this, a lot.

Luckily the morning rush only seemed to last until eight and then we were just left with a thin trickle of Wicked Wick regulars and most wound up picking tables to sit at and lounge for a while. Oh, thank the gods. At least I got a second to breath.

"Is it always like that when Spider's café closes for repairs?" Why was I assuming that this was a regular occurrence?

"Every time. We're the only two places to get coffee on this side of town." Coby explained.

"And somehow both cafes are able to say open with decent profits and little competition?"

"Spider's café has a…. more spirited clientele so at least once every couple of months they wind up closed for repairs. And once every month we're closed to change our candles. Generally, those days aren't the same. People go to whichever is open and when we're both open then regulars go where they usually go and new comers go to whichever atmosphere they like better."

"And when are both are closed."

Coby chuckled. "Then they have to go to the other side of town and they're usually not happy about it." Oh I was sure.

The bell over the door tinkled. I never understood why I had written a bell in such a dark and quiet place like Wicked Wick Café, but at least it was one of those high pitched clear bells. Perhaps though in later writings, if I chose to ever write about the Wicked Wick Café again, I could change it to wind chimes, those would be better. A nice whimsical sound.

My breath caught at the sight of the girl who had walked in. Ren. Renee D Jordan, a character I'd created so long ago, but just couldn't get right. She was Nami's doppelganger, my experiment with the idea of split souls, except that had only come later. The true start of Ren had been a Nami dress up game. I'd wanted a character look just the way I'd dressed up Nami and so Ren was created. It was several chapters into her fic that I'd come up with the doppelgangers rules, which I thought was my finest bit of twisting, unfortunately the fic had fallen apart. It was crappy and way too fast. So, I'd tried to rewrite it. If I had my numbers right I was on rewrite seventeen.

Ren approached the counter. Oh gods, I was about to interact with my own character. Why the hell was I so nervous?

Azrael giggled from their perch on my shoulder. In all the rush, I'd forgotten the chibi was there. "What's so funny?" I grumbled.

"Just you." I scowled at the pixie's words and chose to watch Ren instead. She looked just like Nami, five foot six, long orange hair, and big bright eyes, though her's were green not brown like Nami's.

I'd written, or at least I'd head cannoned, that Ren liked to steal other people's cool looking clothes. I'd gotten as far as writing her getting Gin's jacket, but I was planning on her getting Paulie's original jacket and making a play for Law's hoodie.

At the moment she walked into the café she was wearing Gin's jacket, her favorite of her collection according to my head canon, a red tank top, black jeans, and combat boots. Well, my characters did always have a better fashion sense than I did, even when I was writing my fashion sense.

"Can I get my usual C?" Ren asked.

Coby grinned. "Sure." He turned to fix her usual, though I had no clue what that was. "You know this stuff will stunt your growth." Coby commented as he handed Ren her to-go cup.

"Good, I'll need it." Oh yeah, I'd been watching _Stick It_ when I started the first rewrite of Ren's story so I'd made her a gymnast even though I knew nothing about gymnastics either, I did however know that a low center of gravity was a good thing.

Ren took her cup, turned on her heel, and left. Huh, so, I really shouldn't have even been freaking out. I didn't even really meet her, let alone interact with her. I tilted my head to one side, but my mind was blank and even that didn't help. Okay then.

I got my break at ten. I ate a muffin, it was my breakfast, lunch, combo. Ren come back at noon. Apparently, she worked a later shift at Wicked Wick. Coby left at one. I got off at three.

When I got off I finally got the chance to talk to Azrael. "So what's up with all the stuff I didn't write?"

Azrael pursed their lips. "Have you ever played with water paints?"

"What I played with was more water than paint, but yeah."

Azrael nodded, "so when you painted you know how the water ran? It spread off of what you did?"

I nodded. "Well the spell is a lot like that, sometimes you get run off that fills in what you haven't written. You can still paint over it if you want."

"Why would I want to? I like the way the two cafes work. I couldn't have written it better myself."

This time when I walked the route between my apartment and Wicked Wick Café I paid attention to my surroundings. I wanted to see what might have run off what I written, that my apartment was in walking distance of work.

The only thing worth noting was a bookshop about halfway between. It was called Good and Evil books. The double doors were wood with an angel and a demon standing back to back carved into them.

I slipped quietly inside. Oh, my gods! It was gorgeous. Row after row of dark wood bookshelves, filled to the bursting point with books. With a large smile, I approached the girl behind the counter. She was pretty too. A pixie cut of bright red hair and deep pools of blue eyes.

"Um, hi." I said nervously.

The girl smiled, flashing her canines which were quite pronounced. She must have had them filed. I'd never actually met someone who had that done before. "Do you have any books full of writing advise?" I wondered.

The girl's smile widened, her teeth thinned and sharpened, all of them, making them look something like an angler fish's or something. The whites of her eyes went black. Oh shit!

"Ash!" Azrael shouted in worry as the girl lunged at me, her neck turning into some kind of strange stretchy shadow. I fell back with a yelp before turning quickly and bolting for the door.

Somehow, I managed to skid across the threshold and slam the doors closed before she could get to me.

"What the hell was that?" I demanded of the spell book as I quickly headed back for the apartment.

"That was another author who couldn't find inspiration." Azrael answered.

"Excuse me?" I slipped into the apartment and locked the door behind me. I checked the windows and made sure they were locked as well. Then I grabbed paper and pen and wrote that the apartment had heavy warding of every single type I could think of. The paint would probably run off into paranormal supernatural territory, but I didn't care, there were already monsters in this world and I wanted to make sure I was protected.

"There are some people who read the spell but can't take the consequences, so they write themselves into oblivion. Others, like the one you encountered, they can't find inspiration so they go mad and after so long of being in a painted world they eventually turn into monsters." Oh gods. Was that what I had to look forward to? I sank to the floor, too weak to stand. Why had I been stupid enough to break the rules?


	3. Mind three: College AU

**I don't own One Piece**

* * *

I spent the next three days in my apartment. I wrote that I had a week paid vacation so I didn't have to worry about going to the coffee shop. Or about walking past that book store.

"That particular writer trapped herself in her domain, as long as you don't step foot in the book store she can't get you." Azrael tried to tell me.

"Doesn't mean my paranoid ass is taking any chances." I grumbled as I threw my pencil down. I'd been working on precautions and ways to exit for the past three days. The first thing I did was catch up on _One Piece_ , and all I could say was, holy crap! The Sanji arc! The next thing I did was even more warding. I turned the necklace I always wore into an amulet of protection. And, then, I wrote, I wrote and worried. Worrying wasn't good for writing, but that didn't really stop me from doing so.

"You need to go back to work. You need to interact with people. If you don't you'll wind up just like her."

I waved away Azrael's concern. I had them, I didn't really need anyone else to keep sane and nothing like the girl in the bookstore. It was just the way my mind worked. I only needed one other person, and they didn't even need to be there in person, though it did help a little.

"Ash!" Azrael wailed. Dear gods, it sounded like a damn foghorn or something.

"Oh, my gods, Z!" I shouted slamming my hands over my ears. "Just give me some time! Please!" I continued, carefully pulling my hands from my ears, just in case Azrael was going to make that sound again, where had it even come from, like damn.

"Z?" Azrael questioned.

"I didn't have time to choke out Azrael, I like it and all, but like damn, it is not a good fit for arguing." I explained, plus I just really liked odd nicknames like Z.

"We weren't arguing." Azrael protested. I chose not to respond to that. Instead I turned back to my writing.

What the hell was I going to write? Man, this writer's block stuff sucked monkey butt. I chuckled when I thought of a line about writing from _Supernatural._ I mean, the fact they made God, you know the infallible one with the big G, a writer who acknowledged that writing was difficult, well to me that was funny.

I picked up my pencil and twirled it around. Perhaps I should work on world building and that way I wouldn't have to risk mischaracterizing any of the _One Piece_ characters, I could just put them in places I thought fit their characters and let the dripping paint effect fill in the rest. Then I wouldn't have to worry about making anybody ooc, which was something I fretted about constantly.

I pulled out a clean sheet of paper and let my pencil hover over it. I was really glad I wasn't using a gel pen, those tended to leave gel all over your paper if you let it hover above it too long, trust me, I went through a whole gel pen phase and did this a lot so I would know.

What kind of world should I build? I knew it had to involve Wicked Wick Café, that was my starting point after all, but a café coffee shop thing was pretty universal. Hell, I could probably fit Wicked Wick Café in the actual _One Piece_ world somehow. But I wouldn't do that. Not with this spell hanging over my head at least. Inserting the coffee shop into the _One Piece_ world would mean risking change to canon and that was a big no-no for me, mostly because I was always worried I was changing the wrong things and that I would have to face a mob of readers who hated it, not that I had to worry about that too much, my stories were never that popular.

So, canon was out. That left me with AUs. That was good, I could work with AUs. AUs were how I got into fanfiction after all. And yeah, I was one of those fanfiction readers/writers whatever.

So, what kind of AU? Well I could do a high school one, but I didn't want to mess with people's ages. Perhaps a collage AU then. Hmm. That could work. I grinned and put the pencil down to paper. Let's start with Coby since I'd already run into him. Well, I knew he worked part time at the café so, I wrote quickly that he went to school in the morning and Wicked Wick Café in the afternoon during the week and worked morning during the weekend. His days off rotated. At school, he was in the ROTC program, which fit with his dream to become a marine. There, I smiled, that should cover Coby enough that the effect would take over the rest.

Now Ren, since apparently, she was here too. Let's see, she was on a gymnastics scholarship and shared a dorm with her twin sister Nami. I loved the doppelganger rules I'd come up with, especially in the later rewrites when I expanded on them, but they had no place in this AU, maybe a supernatural one if I chose to write it. Nami was studying meteorology and oceanology. I thought that fit Nami really well, but I could have been wrong. Damn my uncertainly sucked.

Ok, so, Coby, Ren, and Nami, got them covered. Who else? Sanji! Couldn't forget Sanji, obviously, he was in culinary school. And Robin! She was a history major, getting her doctorate, who also worked at the museum with Trix. Trix was another one of my ocs. I'd written her into a later Doppelganger rewrite as the collector's curator. She was also clairvoyant. She was younger than Robin by a couple of years, but they were still good friends.

Ok so that was two ocs in this world, three if I counted, and probably too many but hey my policy with fics was always go big or go home… hmm… that was probably why they all flopped, they got too big and got away from me. Anyway, who else? Well I could do Luffy, but I wanted to avoid him as long as possible, simply because I wasn't entirely sure what to do with him yet.

Usopp would be a jack of all trades. He hadn't picked a major yet, but was taking a whole bunch of different classes, stuff like creative writing and wood working.

Who else? Oh! Chopper! Med-school clearly, way early admission, but hey the kid was a genius, right? I didn't know enough about med school to say if he was in pre or regular, but hey the effect would fill that in for me, right? I really hoped so. And if we were placing Chopper we might as well place Law too since all over Tumblr people were calling them doctor bros, sort of like how Tony and Bruce from _Avengers_ were called Science Bros, though that might have been a ship. I don't know, I'm not really into the _Avengers_ fandom I've only saw like one movie and I was mostly paying attention to Loki, Black Widow, and Hawkeye.

Brook taught Music, Franky taught wood working. Zorro and Luffy were from town and well… I didn't know if they went to the college or not, I'd let the effect figure it out. Perona, Zoro's sister in this AU, because gods above and below did I love the family dynamic between Zoro, Perona, and Mihawk, but anyway she went to the college as a fashion major, you could not tell me she would not be in fashion to dictate what is cute and what is not.

I frowned, trying to think of more canon characters, but there were so many that trying to just pull one free was starting to fry my brain. I threw my pencil down and rubbed at my eyes, my glasses joining the pencil on the table.

Dear gods! Why?

"Are you okay?" Azrael asked, hovering just over my left shoulder.

"Not in the slightest." I grumbled.

I grabbed my glasses from the table and slipped them back on and shuffled my papers. I wrote in a couple more precautions and threw the papers into a folder and the folder into my bag. I put the strap of my bag over my shoulder and stood.

"Alright Azrael, you get your wish. I'm going to go out and interact with someone." I announced.

Azrael smiled, looking more relieved than they probably should have. They didn't know my plan yet.

Azrael followed me. I snagged my jacket by the door and slid out the door.

I took the stairs instead of the elevator to give myself more time to think. Was I really doing this? Of course, I was because I was an idiot. I was also scared crapless, so perhaps I shouldn't. No, I'd made up my mind, now was not the time to back out.

"So, who are you going to interact with? Ren? Coby? The character you totally have a crush on but don't want to admit?" I nearly choked on air, how the hell had Azrael know about that?

"The girl in the bookstore."

Azrael stopped short. I turned to watch them. "Are you insane?"

"Not that I'm aware of, but that doesn't take it completely off the table."

"She'll eat you alive! Literally!"

"You said it yourself, she trapped herself in there, as long as I don't cross the threshold I'm good. And I'm sorry, but I need answers. Answers you can't give me."

"How do you know?"

"Because I doubt you can tell me the leading factor in the spiral to become a monster. And besides that, she's obviously been around the spell longer so she might be able to give some tips on how to work it."

"You would trust someone who tried to kill you over me?"

"Trust has nothing to do with it."

With a pout and an exaggerated sob Azrael popped out of existence. Well hell! I hadn't meant to upset anybody. I shook my head. Making sure Azrael was alright was important, but it wasn't like I could find them without cheating and if I didn't confront the girl in the bookstore now I'd lose my nerve.

So I turned on my heel and continued to the bookstore. Once I got there I stood two feet back from the entrance and pushed the doors open with my newly written in telekinesis. Yes, it was a cheat, but I couldn't think of any other way to do it without getting close enough for her to eat me. I would write the telekinesis away as soon as I was done with her. Telekinesis wasn't my preferred power anyway.

The girl was standing there when the doors opened. She quirked an eyebrow at the distance I stood. "Really now, is all that necessary?"

"You tried to eat me!"

"Yes well, it would have been a much better fate than what's coming."

"Must everyone here speak in riddles?"

"Do you really expect anything different? We're in a spell world."  
Which reminded me. "Why did you turn yourself into a monster?"

"Do you know why I named my shop Good and Evil books?"

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"Some books are good, some even neutral, they don't cross any lines. They just exist. Some teach lessons. Some allow us to move beyond our realm. Others, others are evil. They snatch up our souls and rip us apart. There are more spell books out there than just Azrael and not all of them are good. I wonder in the end, which side you'll choose."

What the hell?


End file.
